Tanka challenge 4/18/11

Strawberries glisten
Like rare jewels as they drain
In a reed basket.
Restraint be damned: I cannot
Resist such a sweet treasure.

Amusing thought for the day.

So I posted two of my B&W Yosemite shots to lj_photophile , namely these two.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/5626487194/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/5626485884/

To my amusement, they're garnering votes: at this writing, the road-to-El-Cap has 8 and the more classic view of El Capitan, 7. I also got an inquiry as to whether I was riding a mountain or road bike at the time, and gleefully fessed up as to the antique nature of my ride. I can't help thinking it would be a complete hoot if both of them ended up in a gunfight for the photo of the week poll. 

Or not. I could just as easily be dismissed as yet another Ansel Adams imitator. Kind of hard not to be, not when my father's go-to choice for a calendar to hang in his study was Adams photos. At least three different people in my company have big Adams B&W posters framed and hanging in their offices. Sure, yes, he's probably an influence just because I've been seeing his work most of my life.

We absorb what we are exposed to. Sometimes we are more conscious of it than other times. A few weeks back didjiman  posted a link to some B&W pano shots he'd taken up in Inverness. I boggled when I saw them, then sent him a link to some B&W stuff I'd shot at the Berkeley Marina a week or two before he shot his. I'm taking baby steps with a point-and-shoot camera, he's got more advanced tools and the know- how to use them. It's no secret I love his work.

For that matter, we always had all sorts of art books around the house when I was growing up. That filing cabinet inside my brain contains everything from Renoir to Paul Klee to Henri Cartier Bresson to Aubrey Beardsley to Albrecht Durer to Julia Margaret Cameron to Paul Cezanne to Maxfield Parrish and on and on.

The Black Swan, now with less crazy